> Gödel’s incompleteness theorems, and Goodstein's theorem sometime later, made an indelible imprint on Penrose. He took from these theorems that there’s a uniq

> Gödel’s incompleteness theorems, and Goodstein's theorem sometime later, made an indelible imprint on Penrose. He took from these theorems that there’s a unique property of the physical universe giving rise to conscious understanding. This is our human ability to understand truths that cannot be derived from the rules that gave us those truths. In other words, the rules allow us to ascertain truths beyond the rules. The ability to understand Gödel and Goodstein’s theorems means there’s something about our conscious understanding that is not confined to computational boundaries. Since all theories of physics are computational, Penrose believes something must be happening in the reduction of the quantum state that gives rise to non-computational understanding. “All I have are all the theories we know in physics. Computational, computational, computational. I mean, you've got to find room for this thing,” says Penrose. He confirms that this thing that physics has to make room for is understanding. That's actually meaty stuff. Quite a good article and fascinating topic. Intuition gets scoffed at a lot in scientific discussions, but at the end of the day, most of the best science is in part a product of our powerful intuition. Sure, it can lead even the brilliant astray, and idiots straight off the rails. But it is still one of the most powerful yet mysterious tools at our disposal.